The present invention relates to an automatic telephone answering apparatus which has provision for playing back the recorded messages transmitted over the telephone lines in response to receipt of a coded signal over the telephone lines, and in particular to an automatic telephone answering apparatus in which only the series of messages between successive coded signals transmitted over the telephone lines are selectively played back.
In telephone answering apparatus of the prior art, the ringing of the telephone at the subscriber's station initiates a normal answering cycle during which a pre-recorded message is first reproduced over the telephone line, and thereafter a recording device is actuated so as to receive a message over the telephone line. In addition, such a prior art device has provision for playing back previously recorded messages over the telephone line in response to a coded signal initiated by the subscriber from a point remote from his telephone station. Telephone answering apparatus is already known which prevents the machine from continuously playing back until all the recording tape is used up. An apparatus which has means for terminating the play-back of the recorded messages is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,004.
However, prior art telephone answering apparatus have had the disadvantage that each time a coded signal is received over the telephone lines, the apparatus rewinds the entire tape to the beginning thereof prior to play-back. Consequently, the user who transmits the coded signal must listen to all the recorded messages on the entire initial portion of the tape. However, this is a time consuming inconvenience, especially when the user has called in one or two times previously. In such a case, the user must hear both the more recent messages as well as those which he has heard earlier when he previously called in.